Shared Links (weekly) Aug. 7, 2022
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‘When it comes to mental health, all countries are developing countries’
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Supporting a Family Member with Serious Mental Illness Is Harder Than It Should Be
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Books Under Review: Summer 2022 – “Reviews of five recent books reflecting various perspectives on the mental health system.”
Shared Links (weekly) June 26, 2022
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3 people with serious mental illness share their pandemic journeys
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Why So Many Long COVID Patients Are Having Suicidal Thoughts
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Why Voices of Lived Experience are Vital to Mental Health Professionals
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7 Children’s Books That Explain Tragedies, News, and Difficult Topics
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Racial disparities in mental health care: An explainer and research roundup
Sharing – Don’t insist on being positive – allowing negative emotions has much to teach us
The article goes on to discuss the various ways those emotions we are trying to avoid by always being positive are actually good for us. How sitting with and processing those emotions help us learn and grow.
Of course, the one thing I will say about that is this. Be prepared to do that work alone, or very nearly alone. The world is full of people who are not comfortable with their pain, sadness, grief, etc., and refuse to do anything but “be grateful.” They also have zero tolerance for other people “bringing them down” with their own emotions.
These people are not capable of being a support to anyone else. The refusal to acknowledge the entirety of human emotion makes them utterly incapable of sitting with someone in their pain. Sadly, as these ideas have gained popularity, they have also limited our support networks. They have created a shortage of people who will sit with us.
Sharing – Raising Critical Thinkers: A Parent’s Guide to Growing Wise Kids in the Digital Age
We would do well with more of this question and a deeper analysis of “says who” and less outrage. They won’t make it easy for us to do that, so we will have to do it for ourselves, and we’re going to have to teach the next generation.
Otherwise we will continue to see social media eat away at our mental health instead of being a tool that could help it by providing us with a community of people with shared interests.